let me just make this a little louder um good morning mr lockhart good morning sir how are you
i'm good thank you um i have a few questions for you so thank you for being available um
And, you know, Mr. Chairman and members of the board, Mr. Lockhart adopted a lot of the information in his materials just a couple minutes ago.
So my questions go to, you know, some of those materials.
So let me begin.
Mr. Lockhart, prior to your current residence, you were living for many years at 226 West
Willow Grove Avenue, a rather tall house with a lot of steps. Is that correct?
In late 2015, as your youngest child was applying to college out of state,
you started looking for a new house. Is that correct?
You were in your early 60s and you didn't want a lot of stairs as you aged. And so you began
looking for a smaller house with fewer stairs, correct? That's what I have written, and that is
correct. Thank you. You considered the famous, one of the houses you considered was the famous
Escherich House. That's for the court reporter E-S-H-E-R-I-C-K, down the street from Millman
Street. But the Escherich House was just a one-bedroom house, and you wanted more bedrooms,
correct? Yes. Seeking a house that you could grow old in, you thought that since the Venturi house
at 8330 Millman, the subject property, was designed for a widow, maybe it would be a good fit for you,
correct? I did say that. 8333 Millman originally had a listing price of $1.75 million, but it was
reduced. And then when you entered into negotiations, it was reduced further to the
ultimate purchase price of $1.325 million. Is that correct? Yes. You thought that part of the reason
for the initial higher prices was the seller's desire to profit off of the fame of the Venturi
name. Is that correct? Yes. You ultimately purchased 8330 Millman in June of 2016.
And I'm thinking that you were 62 years old at that time. Is all that correct?
I got to think about the age part. 102954 is my birth date. So whatever it was.
Okay, we'll do the math. Thank you very much. But you were in your early 60s, suffice to say.
Suffice to say.
Thank you.
And there's no mortgage recorded on the property, correct?
You are correct, sir.
I'd like to talk, shift gears for a minute.
You appeared at the historical commission meeting at which the designation occurred in November of 2016.
And you said at the time that you agreed with and supported the designation.
Is that correct?
I did.
uh one of the exhibits in our package um exhibit x um it contains the minutes of the of that
historical commission meeting and it contains a sentence that says he meaning you mr lockhart
noted that he bought the house in part to protect it and intends to live there until he dies
close quote do you have any reason to think that that's not an accurate part of the minutes
I'm not sure it's the minutes.
I think it might be a summary of what was said.
But that was my intention, and it remains my intention.
Thank you.
The historic designation does not apply to the interior of the house.
Is that correct?
That is correct.
I'm sorry.
Is that correct, sir?
That's what I'm saying.
Thank you very much.
I'm sorry to clarify.
there is no easement or contractual restriction of any kind that affects what changes you can or
cannot make to the interior of the property? Correct.
to the interior of the property? Correct. Mr. Chairman, I don't have any
further questions at this time. Are you through? Yes, thank you. Okay. Mr. Boney,
do you have a witness? I do. I first have some opening remarks and to walk the board
through our exhibits, and then I have my one and only witness.
How long do you think your opening remarks will be, Mr. Boney?
Approximately 11 minutes. I've timed it, condensed it as much as possible.
Okay. Thank you.
Okay. I represent the next door neighbors, Joan and Brooke Lau, and we are opposed to the
requested variants. We believe there's no hardship, there's no least minimum variants,
and that there's undue impact on the use and enjoyment of our property.
The existing house on the site is indeed a famous house by a famous architect.
We agree it's an important house from an architectural standpoint.
There are many books written about it, and it's discussed in university classrooms.
We don't dispute any of that, and indeed, we appreciate it.
But at the end of the day, it is a house.
It's quite beautiful, especially on the inside, as you saw from the photographs last time.
and various people have lived in the house happily for the past 58 years since it was built.
It was built to be suitable for an older person to inhabit with everything that's needed for living
on the first floor. We will present materials about those occupancies, an important part of
our case. The proposal is for a standalone new construction ADU, which is a use not allowed in
Philadelphia. The applicant's desire for an ADU to accommodate visits from his extended family
is commendable, but it is not a hardship under our zoning code and under many cases, including
cases from our state Supreme Court here in Pennsylvania. It's a bedrock principle of
zoning law that a property that can accommodate a viable use by right, as the existing house is,
cannot qualify for a variance. I'd like to walk the board through some of our exhibits and then
I'll call my witness to the stand to ask her to adopt my testimony and also ask her a few questions
about impact, etc. So I'd like to turn to our exhibits as quickly as possible.
These are our, this is the beginning of our exhibits. You can see from our
listing page here
that we have
my client's deed, we have the
photographs that you saw, we have Mr.
Lockhart's deed, and
we also have beginning
here with
we have a few articles.
There's been really so much written
about this house.
It's really quite
astounding.
The first article is this article in Architects Magazine in which the applicant is interviewed.
The second article in Exhibit G is an excerpt from a famous book on this house,
indicating that Vanna Venturi, of course, this building was designed by the famous architect Robert Venturi for his mother, Vanna,
indicating, and the exhibit indicates that Vanna was born in 1893. As you may recall from our last
hearing, there was some debate about when she was born and how old she was at the time that she
moved into the finished house in 1964. And we now know that she was 71 years old at that time,
and that when she moved out in 1973, she was 80 years old. Just sort of flipping through this
to show that information and of course after her after she moved out the house was sold to
thomas and agatha hughes who lived in there for many years and thomas living there into his 80s
exhibit h is an article with an interview of the hughes daughter also named agatha
who lived in the house from 2009 to 2016, when the house was sold to the applicant.
Staying with the sequence of our exhibits here, our next exhibit I contains the zoning archives,
which shows that the property when it was built in 1963 and 64 was built by Wright.
current or even prior violations of the city code on the house exhibit q i'm going to jump a few
is of course
i thought something where exhibit q is a letter from brooke lao i don't want to spend any more
time on this letter except to say that Mr. Primavera kindly agreed that we can submit
it into the record without the need to spend time on calling her for her testimony and we appreciate
that. We also have a statement from John Lau as Exhibit R. Of course, John will be with us in a
moment, and she can adopt this. There are two letters in Exhibit S. I don't have to show them
to you, letters of objection from two additional near neighbors. Exhibit W, and I'm almost finished
here, Mr. Chairman, are two articles with additional information about the house and its
inhabitant. But I want to spend just a minute on Exhibit Z and AA, which is our last exhibit.
Exhibit Z is a scholarly book that contains a chapter on the Venturi house. We have a
biography of the author as the last page of this exhibit. And I'd like to point out a couple
sentences that the author writes based on her research. In fact, her research includes
interviews with Mr. Venturi and his wife, who's also an acclaimed architect who worked with him
over the years, that moreover, as a residence for an older person who was still quite healthy
in the early 60s, but nonetheless needed a bit of extra looking after and perhaps might later need
a live-in nurse companion, as Venturi's father had at the end of his life, Venturi's mother had
to respond to an, Venturi's mother's house had to respond to an unconventional program providing
spaces for daily life on one floor and facilitating the movements of a need for the domestic privacy
of a caretaker. As Denise Scott Brown, that's Venturi's famous wife, explained, although the
Van Aventuri house is usually described in stylistic and formal terms, functional requirements
were not ignored in its planning. They were merely not discussed in our writing. The house works in
the narrowly functional sense, but it satisfies as well a broader range of functions. For example,
It was intended for a widow and perhaps her companion.
Almost finished here, Mr. Chair, and the next couple of pages, it says the house was designed to be lived in comfortably by more than one person.
And at various times, Vanna shared it with her caretakers, with her son until his marriage, with her son and daughter in law for a period after their marriage with an architecture student.
and finally at the very end with a live-in nurse.
And of course, the Hughes lived there afterwards.
Our last exhibit, Mr. Chair, is also,
it's an online article, a blog, if you will,
by an architect here in Philadelphia
who used to work with the Venturi firm.
I used to work at the Venturi firm.
We include her resume also.
and she writes that the house was designed for Bob's aging mother and needed to allow for her
to age in place in one floor. The first floor consists of a living and dining room, kitchen,
and two bedrooms, one medium size for her and one small for a caretaker. I'd now like to,
those are our exhibits, I'd now like to call my only witness Ms. John Lau with the board's permission.
if ms lau can raise her hand and be uh ms lau you're allowed to talk
hello can you hear me yes
mr chair you're muted maybe
mr boney i think what you said she's going to adopt your testimony
yeah he or she right yeah she and after that a short statement so I have 11 my direct
examination of her is about 11 minutes okay um I think I think where we are we're up against some
I think I think where we are, we're up against some time here. And I think besides that, then we're going to have to open it up to neighbors and planning commission. So we're going to need another date. And, you know, it's no fault of yours. It's just the way the schedule was today. So, I mean, I think your case is open.
time here
We were really hoping to finish today, Mr. Chairman.
Finish the whole thing?
Well, we were hoping.
I don't see that.
I just don't see that.
So, Hillary?
Mr. Jerry, as you know, we have an absolute, absolute hard stop at 1 p.m.
And we do want to be, we have one more case that we want to make some progress on as well.
So, unfortunately, I think this is a good stopping point for this case.
And we do have a resumption date, I believe, Ms. Dandy.
You know, Mr. Chairman, if I may, and I'll ask Mr. Bonney this as well.
We might be able to do this by post-hearing submissions or even affidavits.
This is our third hearing today on single family dwelling.
Hillary, is that okay?
We can do that.
We just need to give the public a chance to testify as well as take the Planning Commission recommendation.
And we can ask the public to submit a letter directly to you.
and that might be a way to do it because the cross-examination I would have is just
acknowledging things in the record anyway, the size of the respective lots, the size of the homes.
So I would be willing in the interest of time, since this is the third session, that we submit
everything in the form of either a letter or affidavit. We know what everyone's going to say
um and if the public wants to uh submit a letter directly to the board uh that would be fine there's
a letter from mr richardson already that uh hillary should have as well as the letter from
um the community association so i don't think there's a lot of additional i don't think we
can do that right because you don't know who else is out there that wants it right we need we need
to give the yeah we need to give the community an opportunity to testify at the hearing um and
and the record would otherwise be closed except for um closing statements from from the two parties
you know it's highly likely that the people who've been waiting for the last three sessions
won't be able to make the fourth so it's probably more due process for them if they're on today
to submit something than to continue it with the likelihood what are the odds that they're
going to be available for the fourth, having sat through three. That's just my thought, Mr. Burden.
Paul, what are you going to say? First of all, I'd be happy if we want to spend a few minutes with
some of the members of the public now to get them so they don't have to return. I only have one
witness. I have 11 minutes of direct examination. I'm sure Mr. Primavera will have a much shorter
across. I can't waive that and do it in writing. I need to present her. This is the sum total of
our case and it's very brief, relatively speaking. Mr. Chair, this is Hillary. Maybe what we should
do is take public testimony in the planning commission now and then do a resumption for
the um direct and cross of miss lao
you guys agree to that is that okay bye thank you okay
questions from um the virtual audience questions or comments sharing my screen i guess okay
questions or comments from the virtual audience yes i see miss well i see a kirsten
fourth. I see him as Kirsten. Okay. Hi, could you state your name and spell for the court
reporter, please? Yes, my name is Kirsten Forstoffel. First name Kirsten, K-E-R-S-T-E-N.
last name is forstoffel f as in frank o r s t h o e f e l right do you swear or firm to tell